According to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, beatitude (often referred to as happiness) is the ultimate end of each person's deliberate actions. Different persons, and even the same person at different times, may identify their beatitude with different conditions: one person may identify his beatitude or his ultimate end, as wealth, another as power, still another as union with God, but all agree, say Aristotle and St. Thomas, that each person is acting for the sake of happiness or beatitude, conceived as an ideal condition. This position is at the core of the ethical theories of Aristotle and St.Thomas.

Various critics of St. Thomas have for a long time argued that this position leads to a disastrous misinterpretation of what ethics is all about. Critics have argued that this "eudaimonistic position" has several problems, but the chief one is that it logically implies that other people are viewed only as mere means in relation to the perfection of one's nature. In other words, St. Thomas's position that the ultimate end of all one's actions is one's beatitude seems to imply that one cannot act for the sake of someone else's good for their own sake. One might act for their good because to do so is to fulfill one's own nature, but this is still to use them as a means toward one's own good. Hence St. Thomas's theory, they argue, all love seems to be, ultimately, self-love. His theory seems to be, in the end, egoistical.

In this paper I examine this objection. Does Thomas's theory imply egoism? To answer this question, I will examine: (1) what St. Thomas means by love in general; (2) his distinction between love of concupiscence and love of friendship; (3) his explanation of our love of other created persons with a love of friendship; (4) his teaching on our love of God; and (5) the significance of his explanation of how genuine love of others is possible.

St. Thomas inherited a developed notion of love from the Fathers of the Church--especially St. Augustine in his Trinitarian theology--and other mediaeval theologians, but he also made certain choices within that heritage, and refinements and developments of his own. I will not try to distinguish here between what Aquinas inherited and what he originated.

According to St. Thomas desire is an act of tending toward a good. Desire can occur on the level of sense appetite or on the level of will. Desire in the sense appetite is an inclination following on, and specified by, sense knowledge. For example, an animal smells suitable food, and he responds by an act of tending toward the food sensed as good. Desire in the will, which Aquinas refers to as an act of love or an act of willing, is an inclination toward an object understood to be in some way good for the agent. For example, I consider that eating now would be healthy, and I therefore incline toward doing so. My inclination toward such an object follows on, and is specified by, intellectual knowledge.

According to Aquinas, prior to these acts of loving there is in the sense appetite or will a favorable disposition or proportion toward the sensed or understood good: and that disposition is properly called "love." One senses or understands a good, and this good attracts the sense appetite or will, that is, this known good disposes the appetite toward it. Thus, Aquinas describes love as follows: "for the desirable (appetibile) moves the appetite, introducing itself, in a way, into its intention, and as a consequence the appetite really tends toward the desirable, as the goal of its motion . . . . Therefore the first change in the appetite produced by the desirable is called love . . . ." So, for example, one smells a hamburger, this sensed good (for a hamburger is fitting to agents like oneself ) affects one, that is, it moves one's sense appetite, disposing it favorably toward itself. That disposition is love.

In addition to love in the sense appetite and in the will, Aquinas speaks of "natural love." By this he means a tendency toward an end which follows upon the nature of the agent, rather than its knowledge, whether sensory or intellectual. Thus, on Aquinas's view heavy things have within them an inclination or tendency to move downward, while light things have a tendency to move upward. A contemporary example is that salt has an inherent tendency to dissolve in water; plants naturally incline to grow and take in nutrients. Every natural entity (as opposed to an artifact) has within it a tendency or set of tendencies to act and react in definite ways. The actions to which it tends are those of which it is capable, in other words, the actualization of its potentialities. Since the actualization of a thing's potentialities is its good, it follows that every natural entity has a natural tendency or set of natural tendencies toward its own fulfillment or good. This is also true, according to Aquinas, of the living powers in living beings: the power of sight has a natural inclination--a natural appetite or love--to its specific actualization. The same is true of hearing, imagination, the nutritive power, the locomotive power, the intellect, and so on. In particular, it is true of the will: since the will is a natural entity--that is, a specific type of natural power--it has a natural tendency or inclination toward the actualization specific to it. Every action of the will, then, according to Aquinas, is an implementation or specific application of that natural inclination. Otherwise, the action in question would be something done to it--a constrained or coerced action--rather than something flowing interiorly from it. [Insert A]

According to Aquinas, there are three types of love according to its relation to knowledge: natural love, sensitive love, and intellectual love. Love in the primary sense refers to the disposition which is a principle of motion or action. Consequent upon love in this primary sense is the act of tending toward a good not yet possessed, and this he calls "desire" (desiderium), and then, a resting in a good which is possessed, which he calls "delight" or "joy" (delectatio or gaudium).

In speaking of the act of loving, Aquinas distinguishes between two types of love. To love (as an act) is always to will good to someone. So, one can speak of loving that which one wills to a person. For example, one loves wine or health if one wills those to another or to oneself. This, says St. Thomas, is love of concupiscence. Or one can speak of loving the person to whom one wills good: thus, willing food and health to one’s children is to love one’s children. And this is love of friendship or love of benevolence. One can love other persons with either type of love. If one loves another because he is good company, or because one can learn from him, then one loves him with a love of concupiscence. On the other hand, to will good to another for his own sake and not just as a means toward some benefit to oneself, is to love him with a love of friendship. Some critics of St. Thomas, in effect, interpret him as saying, or implying, that we love ourselves with a love of friendship, but all others, God included, with a mere love of concupiscence.

This of course is a misinterpretation. Aquinas clearly teaches that we ought to love God and our neighbor, not just with a love of concupiscence, but with a love of friendship. Charity is a supernatural friendship with God, in which both God and neighbor are loved with a love of friendship, whereas irrational creatures are loved only with a love of concupiscence. Indeed, St. Thomas teaches that we should love God more than ourselves; otherwise our love is deficient, immoral. Answering the objection that one's love of God is for the sake of enjoying him, and therefore one's love of God is based ultimately on one's love of self, St. Thomas says:

That a man wishes to enjoy God pertains to that love of God which is love of concupiscence. Now we love God with the love of friendship more than with the love of concupiscence, because the Divine good is greater in itself, than our share of good in enjoying Him. Hence, out of charity, man simply loves God more than himself.

Thus, for Aquinas it is quite clear that God is to be loved for his own sake, not merely for the sake our perfection, and that he should be loved wholly and without measure (that is, one cannot love God too much).

Indeed, St. Thomas calls love of concupiscence love only secundum quid while love simpliciter is love of friendship: "For that which is loved with love of friendship, is loved per se and simpliciter; that which is loved with a love of concupiscence is not loved simpliciter and according to itself (secundum se) but is love to another (alteri)." Love of concupiscence relates to its object as accidental, and what is accidental must be reduced back to what is substantial. Of course, nowhere does St. Thomas say that the only substance one can love in the manner of a substance is oneself; on the contrary, everywhere he teaches the opposite. Or as he puts it elsewhere, the love of concupiscence is not terminated in the thing willed to a person, but it is "reflected" toward the one to whom one wills that good.

Critics could reply, however, that while St. Thomas in many places affirms that we should love others for their own sake, his metaphysics of the good and his position that every deliberate action is for the sake of one's happiness, are incompatible with that claim. In short, one might reply that Aquinas's Christianity led him to affirm genuine disinterested love of others and of God, but that his Aristotelianism is logically inconsistent with that position.

Two propositions in Aquinas disturb his critics on this issue. First, he holds that "good" refers to the fulfillment of a thing, and so what is good is proportioned to, or relative to, the thing or nature one is discussing: what is good for a horse, for example, is different from what is good for a human being. The implication is, one might argue, that each human being can act only for what is good in relation to himself, and not for the sake of what is good in itself, objectively.

A second Thomistic assertion that troubles critics is that the ultimate end of a human being is happiness, and every deliberate human action is, ultimately, for the sake of one's own happiness. Does this not imply that human beings cannot actually

love God and our neighbors for their own sakes, but only as means for the sake of their own happiness? The answer to these objections comes in two parts: the first part, the essentials of which are derived from Aristotle (so it will become clear that Aristotle is no egoist either), concerns the love of other created persons. The second part, original with St. Thomas, concerns our love of God.

The distinction between love of concupiscence and love of friendship can be misunderstood. The Swiss Lutheran theologian Anders Nygren made famous the distinction between eros and agape. According to Nygren, eros is the acquisitive drive, that is, the drive toward self-perfection. Greek philosophy, said Nygren, held eros to be supreme and the fundamental law or pattern of reality and life. But, according to Nygren, the Christian idea of agape is radically different. Agape is the desire for someone's else's good. It is pure, disinterested love. In agape one transcends eros and wills good to another for his own sake, with no concern for oneself. Now, on first reading St. Thomas on love, one might be tempted to identify his love of concupiscence with Nygren's eros, and St. Thomas's love of friendship with Nygren's agape.

But that would be a mistake. St. Thomas does not say that love of concupiscence is love of self and love of friendship is love of another. Rather, love of concupiscence is found in every act of love: it is not a distinct act of love, but an aspect of every act of love. In every act of love, I will a good (that's love of concupiscence) to a person (whether another or myself, and that's love of friendship). So if I will health to another, my love of that health is love of concupiscence. If I will health to myself, my will's relation to the person to whom I will that good--namely, myself--is love of friendship. And so Aquinas does not think love of concupiscence is bad, something we have to set aside, to attain love of friendship. Rather, in every act of love, there is both love of concupiscence and love of friendship.

How is it possible for human beings to lover others with a love of friendship? Aquinas's answer is that good is the cause of love, which, of course, means a good that is proportionate to the one who loves. "Now the proper object of love is the good; because, as was said, love denotes a certain connaturality or complacency of the lover toward the one loved. Now to each thing that is good which is connatural and proportionate to it." This is not to say--since he has just explicitly denied it in this passage--that the good is only my individual perfection. Rather, the sort of object which is "connatural and proportionate" to me moves or attracts my will. If that object is (or would be) instantiated in a distinct subject, then I am inclined toward the good of another.

One might ask: which type of love is Aquinas speaking of here--love of concupiscence or love of friendship? The answer is, both. What is connatural and proportionate to me moves or affects my will, so that I have a favorable disposition toward it: to will the proportionate object as a substance is to love simpliciter; to will a proportionate object as an accident is to love (something) to someone, that is, to that person whose fulfillment it is. One can will the existence and actions of other substances as means toward one’s own perfection—loving them with a love of concupiscence. But one can also will the being and perfection of substances other than oneself, precisely as substances--and that is to love them with a love of friendship. Thus, there is no sharp split between love of concupiscence and love of friendship: one wills the being and full-being of those connatural and proportionate to one. So my will is moved toward them, but not just so as to be in me, but also to be in others as well. Similarly, though, human perfection is instantiated in others is proportionate to my, and affects my will.

But Aquinas's explanation of our love of others becomes clearer when he explains that similitude also is a cause of love. Similitude, he says, is a cause of love of friendship in this sense: A person naturally loves himself, but also those who are similar to himself, because insofar as they are similar they are united to him.

Therefore the first kind of similitude [whereby they both have the same form in act, rather than just in potency] causes love of friendship or benevolence. For, from the fact that two things are similar, having as it were one form, they are in a certain way one in that form, just as two human beings are one in the species of humanity . . . . And therefore the affection of one tends toward the other, as it is one with himself, and he wills good to him as to himself.

On Aquinas's view, each agent acts for its own good--that is its nature. But the agent's natural tendency or love does not stop at his own individual perfection. One's love also naturally extends toward those who are united with oneself. Then, one wills good to these others as to oneself. They are, as it were, "other selves." One must recall that for St. Thomas, "similitude" means a union or unity together with difference. That is, two things are similar just in case they are one, or have the same form, in one respect, but differ in other respects. Thus, one naturally loves oneself, and those with whom one is in communion. Thus this same point is made earlier in the Summa, where St. Thomas is speaking of an angel’s love of another:

As was said above, it is true of both angel and man the he naturally loves himself. But that which is one with a thing, is (in a way) that very thing. Hence everyone loves that which is one with himself. . . . Hence it should be said that one angel loves another with a natural love insofar as the other is one with him in nature. (ST, I, q. 60, a. 4c)

Aquinas also at times refers to this similarity or union that grounds love of another as a "communicatio." There are different types of friendships, and they differ as being based on different connections of unions. Thus he distinguishes between a friendship of "consanguinity," a friendship between co-citizens, and one between co-workers.

This union which is the basis of the extension of one's love of self to others must be distinguished from the union which love itself establishes. When Aquinas asks whether union is an effect of love, he says that one must distinguish between the ontological union which precedes and grounds love (of friendship) of others and the union in affection which is an effect of love. As a consequence of love of friendship, the other is related to oneself as another self: one's affections are related to him just as they are to oneself. But preceding this union of affections is the love itself, and preceding the love itself is the ontological union--of one sort or another--that grounds the love.

So, one can say that while St. Thomas certainly holds, following Aristotle, that every agent acts for its perfection or fulfillment--the self for whose fulfillment one acts is not an isolated individual, but a being with real ontological connections or unions with others. So, every agent acts for his own fulfillment, but not just for his merely individual fulfillment. Rather each person acts--or should act, for there are defections from this, of course--for the fulfillment of herself and of those with whom he is in communion.

The importance of unity in St. Thomas’s explanation of love of others is clarified when St. Thomas examines the relationship between love of God and love of self. In several places Aquinas argues that it is natural for us to love God more than ourselves, and this, of course, with a love of friendship. But he explains how this is so in such a way as to maintain a fundamental harmony between love of God and love of self.

He argues that now, because of the wounds of original sin, we need grace to enable us to love God more than ourselves. That is, one of the effects of original sin is a disorder in the natural inclination of one's will. Still, it is natural for the creature to love God more than itself. This natural inclination, he explains, is part of the creature's natural inclination to its own perfection. The following passage in the Summa Theologiae sets the argument out in syllogistic form:

Now, in natural things, everything which, according to nature of that which it is, is of another [secundum naturam hoc ipsum quod est, alterius est] is more principally and strongly inclined to that of which it is, than toward itself. . . . . For we observe that the part naturally exposes itself for the sake of the preservation of the whole, as, for example, the hand is without deliberation exposed to a blow for the sake of the preservation of the whole body. . . . . Therefore, since God is the universal good, and under this good are naturally contained both angel and man, and since every creature, according to that which it is, [secundum id quod est] is of God [Dei est], it follows that by a natural love both angel and man love God more, and more principally, than themselves.

St. Thomas returns to this explanation frequently, explaining that each creature is, in a way, a part of the whole universe, and on that basis it is natural for the creature to love the good of the whole universe, which is God (for the universe is the expression of God's own goodness) more than one's particular self. Of course, this should not be read in a pantheistic way. Nor doe does he mean that a person is merely a part of the whole. Each person is a whole in his own right, that is, a substance. Still, a person is a member of the larger community: this belongs to a created person according to what he is. So, his perfection consists in being a consitituent or part of the good of the universe.

This argument here has, of course, been interpreted in various ways. I believe Aquinas is making two distinct points here. First, each creature's good is a participation of, that is, a finite replica of some aspect of, God's universal Good. Whatever goodness is in each creature pre-exists in God in a higher manner. Now, each creature is naturally inclined to its own good. But that good is found in God in a higher manner. Therefore, the creature's natural inclination will be toward God even more strongly than toward its particular good. This is why in the above passage he speaks of the universal good, under which the creature's good is contained. Similarly, when presenting this argument in his Commentary on the Divine Names, he says: "For that which is superior among beings is compared to the inferior as the whole to the part, insofar as the superior possesses perfectly and totally that which the inferior possesses imperfectly and particularly. . . ." So, the good to which a creature is naturally inclined (its own) is found more perfectly in God, and as a consequence, the creature's natural inclination extends, in some way, to God. St. Thomas holds that the love of self is the root and cause of the love of other created persons. But the love of self is not the root and cause of love of God. Rather, his position is that an ingredient in one's basic natural inclination is an inclination toward the universal good of which one's proper good is a participation or imitation.

Secondly, it belongs to what a creature is ("secundum hoc id quod est," Thomas says) to be a member of the whole universe. So, if the creature inclines toward its fulfillment, then it must incline toward cooperating with other members in its community, and, ultimately, in the largest community of all, the universe. As a good basketball player is not just one who shoots baskets well, makes rebounds, and so on, but is, by the nature of the case, one who also plays well with his teammates and contributes to the good of the team; likewise, the perfection of any creature includes as an essential component his contribution to, and his caring for, the fulfillment of the good of the whole universe, not just his own individual good.

Perhaps this point could be stated more simply as follows. To love oneself is to will what is really good to oneself. But caring only about oneself diminishes oneself. Caring only about oneself, acting as if one were the center of reality and everything and everyone else a mere means toward one's own perfection, severely detracts from one's perfection. So, to love only oneself is not to love oneself. The sinner, says St. Thomas, does not properly, or genuinely, love himself. True, he has a disordered love of self, but he does not will what is genuinely good to himself. To will what is genuinely good to oneself requires that one be a person who cares for others for their own sakes.

Or, to put this same point still another way: if you love yourself, then you will want to be morally good and have friendships, real friendships. Someone might object that this makes caring for another a means in relation to one's individual perfection. But the point is that only if one genuinely--that is, not as a mere means--cares for others for their own sakes, is one an upright, good person. One cannot, coherently, want to be morally good merely as a means toward an end, and one cannot will to have a friendship in the full sense of the term, unless one is morally good for its own sake and unless one cares for one's friend for his own sake, and not as mere means toward one's own perfection. Caring about even one's own individual perfection logically entails caring about other people's perfection for their own sakes.

We can now return to the questions we raised about Aquinas's position regarding love of others. One question centered on his notion of good. It has sometimes been claimed (as we mentioned above) that Aquinas's notion of good implies egoism. Does not Aquinas say that what is good involves a relation to another, a relation to that for which the state or conditon is deemed good? And does not this imply that what is good can only be good in relation to me, or in relation to you, but not good in itself. And so, on this view, would it not follow that I cannot view something as important in itself, or valuable in itself?

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that "good" means the fulfillment of a thing, so that it does ollow that what is good for one thing is distinct from what is good for another thing. Still, on this approach one could still simply say that what is good (fulfilling) for B can become good for A, and that that precisely is what occurs when A loves B. Indeed, unless there is some sense in which "B's good" refers to what is fulfilling for A as distinct from any other being, then one cannot intelligibly say that "A has a disinterested love of B." The bare notion of good, and there are various ones proposed by different philosophers, cannot commit one to the questions whether and how it is possible for one person to be genuinely interested in the being and fulfillment of another person.

A second question was whether St. Thomas's position on beatitude is compatible with his position that we ought to love God and neighbor for their own sakes. His position that every deliberate act is for the sake of one's own happiness or beatitude, some have claimed, implies that other people's good can be willed or loved only as a means toward one's own happiness or fulfillment. For example, Joseph Seifert has written:

From the Eudaemonistic position it follows that we view other persons ultimately only as means for our own happiness. To use other persons, however, exclusively as means for our good is evidently morally wrong. Another person ought to be taken seriously in what he is in himself--which is impossible if our last motive is only our own happiness.

And John Crosby, in his recent book on the human person, writes: "And yet it remains the case that whoever lives as a consistent eudaemonist cannot achieve the transcendence of value response; such a one lives for his own happiness in such a way as to be prevented from giving things their due, affirming them for their own sakes."

Of course, this criticism is not new. Something like it was voiced by John Duns Scotus.

The Lutheran theologian Anders Nygren, in his famous work, Agape and Eros, made the accusation of egoism against St. Thomas. [need to expand]

On their interpretation, St. Thomas holds that happiness is same as the perfection solely of my individual nature: actions which promote my perfection are good, actions which thwart it are morally bad. Von Hildebrand speaks of such a theory as follows:

Sometimes the attempt is made to reduce the value to the suitability an object has to appease an appetite, not insofar as the experienced appeasement or the satisfaction is concerned, but insofar as the object answers to and fulfills an innate teleological trend in our nature. Value is then considered as the suitability of an object to bestow on us that which we objectively need for the full unfolding of our entelechy.

This view, von Hildebrand later says, cannot rule out selfishness as immoral, and it reduces morality to a set of hypothetical imperatives. Now, von Hildebrand does not himself in that work identify the theory he discusses as St. Thomas's, but his followers have made that connection. After examining St. Thomas's positions on love of neighbor and love of God, what should we say in reply to these arguments? The fundamental answer to these objections is this: true, every act is for the sake of one's own good--otherwise, the action does not flow from within, but is imposed from outside. However, this does not mean that every act is for the sake only of my own individual good. Rather, as we have seen, Aquinas is quick to point out that I am inclined toward my perfection according to the sort of thing I am. And I am not just an individual. First of all, I am in communion with other people in various ways: family members, co-citizens, co-student, co-employees, and all other human beings. These different ontological unions ground different types of affective unions. Secondly, as a creature my good is a reflection--vague and inadequate, but real--of the universal and infinite goodness which is God. And so my natural inclination is toward my good, but not as if it were the center, or the only good, in the universe. It is toward my good as a part of, or a constituent of, the good of the universe as reflecting the universal good, the fulfillment of God’s plan. And so beatitude, for St. Thomas cannot consist in my own individual fulfillment in isolation. It is a sharing in the divine beatitude, and so is essentially social.

St. Thomas takes over Boethius's definition of beatitude: "the state perfected by the possession of all goods." Aquinas holds, of course, that the essence of true beatitude is vision of the divine essence as it is in itself. This is a supernatural condition, that is, one which is more than the actualization of our natural capacities. In addition, beatitude will include the fulfillment of all of our natural capacities, since in creating us God directs us to our fulfillment. God is the author of our nature, that is, the natural inclinations in us as directing us toward our fulfillment are from God. The fulfillment of our natural capacities--which in the early question of the Prima Secundae St. Thomas says will come about by an "overflow" (redundantia) from the beatific vision itself, is our natural fulfillment. So, there will be supernatural fulfillment (union with God) and natural fufillment (actualization of natural capacities) as components of complete beatitude. Neither of these components, however, should be conceived individualistically. Communion with God is by the nature of the case social, a communion with the three divine persons, but also a supernatural communing with all the other saints, all the other friends of God. Natural fulfillment also will include friendship, the fulfillment of our social nature. So, our friendships will have both natural and supernatural comonents or levels. On both the natural level and the supernatural level there will be a communing with others. Aquinas's notion of heaven should not be conceived on the model of neo-platonists. In speaking of the body, St. Thomas explicitly says that I am not saved unless my body is saved. One could say that I am not fulfilled--that is, the perfection of God's plan for me has not been attained--unless the social aspect of my nature is also fulfilled. So, beatitude is not, on Thomistic lines, an individualistic condition. Therefore, acting for the sake of beatitude is not aiming merely at one's individualistic perfection. Rather, it is aiming at a condition that is communal. My beatitude includes more than my individual fulfillment. Thus, one could express St. Thomas's thought by saying that one's ultimate end in life should be the glory of God, understood as the fulfillment of God's plan for creation, and one's own good as a constituent--not a mere means, nor the end to which everything else is a mere means.

VI. Objections

Let us now consider some objections regarding Aquinas's position. First, does not St. Thomas say that if, per impossibile, God were not man's good, man's beatitude, then man would not love God. Discussing this text, Joseph Seifert says, "From this passage it would seem that all persons, even God, can be approached by us only as the source or means for our own happiness which is the sole ultimate motive and reason for love." Seifert also says that St. Thomas does affirm that we should love God for his own sake, but Seifert says that his position is highly ambiguous.

However, Aquinas does not say that we love God only because he is our good--in fact, he explicitly denies this proposition. Rather, what he says is that we can love God only if he is our good. His point is this: To will someone's perfection, there must be an ontological union with that person, so that our love for perfection extends to them. The ontological connection with God is that He is our good, the universal good of which our good is an image. If you remove our connection with God, that is, if you sever, per impossibile, any ontological union with God, then we cannot love Him. This in no way implies that what we ultimately love in loving God is ourselves. In brief: God's being our good is the ground or enabling condition of our love of God, but that is quite different from saying it is the ultimate object (in the sense of the person for the sake which) one loves.

Another objection expressed first by von Hildebrand, and then by others, is that to base love of another on love of self is to ignore the specific mystery of personal love.

Instead of engaging in total thaumazein (the act of wondering, marveling) in the readiness to recognize a mystery, one wishes to avoid this in-depth approach and attempts to reinterpret the essence of the reality in question and to derive it from something which, for the most part, only appears to be plausible. By this approach we ignore the specific essence of this reality.

Von Hildebrand concedes that we do have a natural solidarity with ourselves, and that in virtue of this solidarity we have a natural attachment, he says, to material things such as food, drink, money, and so on, and our general fortune. However, this general interest or attachment is not to be identified with love. It arises, says von Hildebrand, from our nature, before all love. In fact, he says, we often do have solidarity with others, but this also should not be confused with love. Wherever solidarity is the basis for interest, one views the other as a part of oneself, or as one's possession. For example, solidarity may ground the interest of a husband in his wife so that he resents people insulting her or mistreating her, even though he himself frequently abuses her. "He experiences attacks on her as if they were directed against him, not because he loves her but because he regards her 'as an extension of his ego.'" In fact, the same phenomenon is at work, says von Hildebrand, when a master resents someone mistreating his servants, despite the fact that he mistreats and abuses them. So, solidarity as grounding someone's love does not give rise to a true transcendence from concern for one's own individual perfection.

The problem with this argument is similar to that found in the previous argument. Von Hildebrand confuses showing how A makes B possible (together with other conditions), with claiming to understand B by claiming that it is nothing but a type of A. St. Thomas does not say that love of another is just a refined, or circuitous, form of love of self. What he says is that the natural inclination to self-fulfillment leads by extension to genuine love of others for their own sake.

Aquinas's arguments here, as we noted earlier, are stated in almost strict syllogistic form. He makes it clear what his premises are and what his conclusion is. In speaking both of love of God and of love of neighbor, Aquinas's argument is essentially this:

(1) In natural things, everything which is ontologically (or, in its being) one with another is naturally inclined toward (naturally loves) the good of that other (as part of, or an extension of, its natural inclination to its own fulfillment);

(2) but every rational creature is, in various ways, ontologically one with others;

(3) therefore, every rational creature is naturally inclined toward the good of others.

Von Hildebrand has not commented explicitly on this argument. But he seems to reject (1). His claim seems to be that a natural inclination is not true love, and that a concern or interest based on solidarity--evidently, Aquinas's ontological union--is not a love of friendship but merely a love of concupiscence (to use Aquinas's terminology). Remarkably, however, the only support he gives for these claims is to cite examples of abusive husbands and slave owners. I say this is remarkable because it is the core of St. Thomas's position on love. We are told that Aquinas's position (or at least something that sound very like Aquinas’s position) is reductionistic and logically leads to egoism, but precisely where we would expect some heavy duty argumentation or support for such bold claims we merely find examples of solidarity grounding love of concupiscence. But, granted that an ontological union (solidarity) can and often does ground a mere love of concupiscence of another, to assume that it can only ground that sort of love is to beg the question. [this probably should go down farther]

The same move is made in the recent book by my friend and colleague John Crosby. He claims, as we saw before, that the eudaimonism of Aristotle and Aquinas leads one to say that human beings live only for their own happiness (read: "individual happiness") and cannot achieve self-transcendence. He then says:

Will it be said that eudaemonists can be interested in the happiness of others and not only of themselves? Very well, but on what grounds is their interest extended to others? If on the grounds that they need the happiness of others under the aspect of promoting their own, then of course they do not transcend themselves towards others--indeed, as far as self-transcendence goes they might as well still be desiring their own happiness. Or do they take an interest in the happiness of others on the basis of absorbing others into themselves, considering others as extensions of themselves? But surely there is no self-transcendence in attaining to the other by abolishing him or her as other!

Both von Hildebrand and Crosby presuppose that where solidarity or ontological union grounds an extension of love to love of another, the other is viewed as a possession or as a part of oneself. But there are three points to be made in reply to this claim.

First, Aquinas's claim is that the love of friendship for oneself is extended to another on the basis of that other's ontological union (same nature, same city, same family etc.), not a mere love of concupiscence. Why assume, as do von Hildebrand and Crosby, that, in effect, such an extension is impossible, that instead, the solidarity allows one only to view the other as possession or a part? In other words, Aquinas claims that genuine love of friendship is extended to another on the basis of various ontological unions. To reply that such an extension does not truly achieve self-transcendence is merely to deny, without the slightest argument, that such an extension is possible.

Secondly, while there certainly are possessive husbands and abusive masters who view other persons as one with themselves, these are, of course, not the types of unions causing love which Aquinas refers to as love of friendship. He explicitly distinguish this sort of case from a case where an ontological union causes an extension of love of friendship. In his commentary on Dionysius's On the Divine Names, he summarizes his position on the causes of love:

And because we love everything insofar as it is our good, love necessarily varies in as many ways as it occurs that something is the good of someone. And this occurs in four ways. in one way, according as something is its own good, and thus something [or someone] loves itself; in a second way, according as something is as it were one with another through a certain similitude, and thus someone loves that which is equally coordinated with itself in some order, as a human being loves another human being of the same species, as a citizen loves a co-citizen, and as a family member [consanguineus] loves another family member; in a third way, something is the good of another because it belongs to it [literally: is of it], as the hand belongs to the human being, and universally the part belongs to the whole; and in a fourth way, conversely, according as the whole is the good of the part, for the part is not perfect except in the whole, and so the part naturally loves the whole and the part spontaneously risks itself for the safety of the whole.

Thus, Aquinas specifically recognizes that in some cases an ontological union (solidarity) grounds only a love of concupiscence--he refers to this sort of case in his third way a thing can be our good. But he also argues that in other cases an ontological union--a similitude, or a part to whole relation--grounds a love of friendship of another. To argue that all cases of solidarity ground only love of concupiscence (as in effect von Hildebrand and Crosby do) begs the question.

A third point in reply to the claim of von Hildebrand and Crosby is that they evidently did not look very hard for examples that might be less than favorable to their view of how solidarity grounds affection or love of another. It may be that a certain disdain for the merely natural order has caused them to overlook the other-directedness of natural love all around us--indeed, in lower animals as well as in human beings. Certainly the love of a mother for her child (or of a father for his child) in some way grows out of the maternal (or paternal) relation itself. This love is as it is, not purely because of the intrinsic degree of goodness in the child--although that of course is also present, as Aquinas insists--but it is clear that this love for one's child is based on his nearness to, or unity with, oneself. A mother loves her child very intensely, not simply or only because he is very good--there likely are other children better than he--but because he is her child. And yet most instances of maternal love are not cases of viewing the child as a part of oneself or as a possession. That does sometimes occur, but, proverbially, a mother's love is usually quite clearly a love of the other for the other's sake. So, Aquinas roots one phenomenon (genuine love of another) in another (natural inclination toward one's fulfillment). This is quite different from saying that one is just a disguised form of the other.

We might ask ourselves why St. Thomas takes such pains to root love of neighbor in love of self, and why he insists that the inclination to love God is an ingredient in our natural inclination. Also, we might ask, is this insistence necessary? Why not simply say that when we perceive someone who merits our love, then we love him? Why not simply say that when we love another for his own sake we are transcending our natural inclination toward self-perfection? Why, in other words, does Aquinas resolutely align himself with what Pierre Rousselot called "the physical conception of love, and why should we do so?"

Indeed, the position that the will is able to act outside the direction of its natural inclination was strongly championed by John Duns Scotus. Scotus argued that, while there is in the will a natural inclination toward the perfection of the agent, an inclination he calls an "affectio commodi" (affection for the advantageous), the will also has the ability to transcend its natural inclination and render to the object what is due it. This ability he calls the "affectio iustitiae"(affection for justice). According to Scotus, then, in order to act morally one must transcend one's inclination toward self-perfection, and thus will to the object what is fitting to it, irrespective of its relation to oneself. On this view, "acting according to nature" is not yet acting in a morally significant way. [put later?] The morally significant acts occur when the will is able to set aside its natural appetite, and act according to its affectio iustitiae. (And something like this position is proposed by von Hildebrand and many of my friends at Franciscan University of Steubenville).

Aquinas considers a position that in some ways is similar to Scotus's in the teaching of William of Auxerre. William taught that our nature inclines us to love ourself more intensely than God, and that only with the supernatural gift of charity do we love God more intensely than ourselves. St. Thomas's answer is significant:

Since God himself is the universal good, under which is contained man, angel, and every creature, since every creature, according to that which it is, is of God, it follows that both man and angel naturally love God more, more principally, than themselves. Otherwise, if it was natural to love oneself more than God, it would follow that natural love would be perverse, and it would not be perfected by charity, but destroyed by it.

The affectio iustitiae of Scotus is not supernatural, and so Scotus's position differs from William's. Still, like William he holds that the will’s natural appetite or inclination is simply toward one's own individual perfection. Indeed, according to Scotus, to love any other person for his own sake involves acting outside or beyond the natural tendency in one's will. So, like the position of William of Auxere criticized by St. Thomas, this position implies that one's nature is self-centerend or egoistical. Genuine love of others requires setting aside one's natural tendency. To act morally one must ignore one's natural inclinations and act instead on the basis of the merits of the object itself. In turn, this position implies that the goodness of the self is an alternative to, and thus in competition with, the goodness of God. Love of self is fundamentally disharmonious with love of God. On this view, then, something of humanity, indeed something quite central--the basic natural inclination to fulfillment--must be set aside or suppressed to make room for love of God.

However, this position has profound difficulties. It is a fundamental metaphysical truth that each agent acts for its own perfection; this is simply a manifestation of its distinctness, of its being a distinct agent or distinct being. If there were an inclination in the will which is outside its natural appetite, then it would have to be either preternatural, if it were not against or contrary to the will's natural appetite, or violent if it were against the will's natural appetite. Such an inclination would have to be something coming to it from an extrinsic agent, and, to that extent, not natural.

It might be objected, however it just is the nature of the will to tend toward good as such, not toward the agent's good. However, the good is fulfillment, so the object of a tendency must be someone or something's fulfillment. What this objection would be saying, in effect, is that the will's nature, or natural appetite would be, not toward its own good (that is, the good of the agent, this human being) but toward the good of the whole, or perhaps, the good-of-every-person-known. But that can't be the whole story. For in that case the will would be by nature only a part; it would have no more tendency toward its own good than toward anyone else's. It would not have a specific or individual nature. Suppose you have a whole, W, composed of x, y, and z. Now suppose x tends toward W's good, and that x's relation to its own good is just the same as its relation to y's good and z's good. And suppose this is true, analogously, of y and z also. Well, that is incoherent. For in that case x, y, and z, could not be different beings. For the actions of a thing follow its being, and if the tendencies of x, y, and z, are no different at all, then x, y, and z are not different. That is, for any x and y, their inherent tendencies cannot be exactly the same (most importantly: have the same logical ordering); for, since action follows being, x and y would not be distinct beings.

It is not incoherent to say that x has a tendency toward W's good (the good of the whole, or more precisely, the universal good, of which x and y are participations) as an integral part of its tendency toward its own good, because it is by nature a part of W—as in Aquinas’s position. You could even say that it tends toward the good of W more than its own good. Still, it's relation to y's and z's good must be different than its relation to its own good. Specifically, the logical order of its interest must differ; x's tendency to y's good and z's good must be based and patterned on its more original tendency to its own (x's) good.

Also, x’s tendency toward y's good or z's good must be a specification of its basic natural tendency toward its own good (which can include its tendency toward W's good, since x is a part of or image of W); otherwise, the tendency toward y's good or z's good is preternatural or violent (to be preternatural rather than violent there would have to be first a union of y's or z's nature with x's). So, x can tend toward y's good or z's good, but only if x's good or y's good first comes under the umbrella or formality (ratio) of x's good. What is at stake in this issue is the metaphysical distinctness and distinct goodness of each creature, as opposed to its absorption in the being and goodness of the Absolute. The creature's good or fulfillment cannot consist only in being for another. It must possess an inherent being and tendency; additional tendencies, unless they are preternatural or violent, must be in some way specifications of, within the rubric of, those inherent, natural tendencies.

The relationship of love of God and neighbor to love of self is analogous to the relationship of grace to nature, or, even more generally, of God to creatures. More specifically, the relationship between the divine good and the good of oneself is an instance of the more general relationship between grace and nature. And so one must be careful not to end up with a dichotomy between love of God and love of self. Such a dichotomy is to be avoided for the same reason that dichotomies between grace and nature are to be avoided.

Part of who you are is the fact that your love follows an order, so that you love more those nearer you, nearer your self, than those more distant. You love your father more then other men not because he is objectively better than they, but because he is your father. For Aquinas this is entirely right, proper, and morally good. In Aquinas there is no bifurcation between an ethical, universalistic standpoint, and a natural, particularistic one. The universal standpoint is achieved, but one arrives at it by extension, by extending one's interests, not by setting aside those which are, after all, bound up with one's deepest personal identity. So, one could rightly call St. Thomas’s disinctive position on love personalistic, since it safeguards reducing or absorbing the identity of the person.

St. Thomas avoids egoism, but he also avoids viewing self-love as an alternative to, and so in fundamental tension with, love of God and love of neighbor. According to St. Thomas, we are called to love God and dedicate ourselves to doing our part in the fulfillment of God's plan. This is the grand vision of the Summa Theologiae Every agent acts for its own good. But its own good is a likeness of God's infinite goodness, willed by God, conserved in being by God, and moved toward attainment of its proper end by God, an end that is at the same time a component in the implementation of God's Providence, God's eternal Plan. So, working for the attainment of one's own good, or the good proportioned to one's nature, and working for God's glory--these are not antithetical. Rather, there is a genuine harmony between one's own fulfillment and the love of God or the fulfillment of his plan. I must not make myself the center, reducing all else to a mere means toward my good, since my good is only a part of the whole, the whole being the common good of the whole universe. On the other hand, my genuine good--which means my real fulfillment, including first-order goods such as knowledge, health, artistic development--is neither a competing (perhaps distracting) alternative, nor an extrinsic means in relation to the fulfillment of God's plan. Rather my genuine fulfillment is an intrinsic constituent of the good which God plans. So, I ought to love myself, that is, will to myself what is genuinely good for me, as part of the fulfillment of God's plan.

There are two aspects to the thing. First, we should love ourselves and those more closely united to us more than those less closely united to us. Our love should radiate out from us, for we are called to have a distinctive identity. But, on the other hand, we are called to radiate our love out to all people, and, indeed, to the good of the universe as a whole, in cooperation with God’s plan. Our love should begin with ourselves, but it should radiate outward to become universal—universal, though not homogeneous. Other creatures make their contribution to the whole world order without conscious cooperation. Non-rational creatures are being used for the good of the world order. But rational creatures are called to actively participate in the directing of their actions to the common good of the universe. That is, because we have reason, we can actively and freely cooperate in the plan, rather than being an unknowing instrument of others working for the good of the whole. It is true, then, that by rationality we transcend our particularity, but we do so without negating our particularity. God is the center, and God is loved even more primordially, and, it is hoped, consciously and freely, than ourselves. After God, who is the absolute center of the universe and therefore should be the center of our love, our own self has a type of priority and so too those more closely united to our self than others are.

Another point. I see that the objects of my natural inclinations are worth pursuing. But such objects are intelligible objects. Not particulars. Moreover, what I grasp is that such a life that can be deliberated about is a good. So, it is not just life in general that I grasp as good, but life that can be fulfilling for a rational agent.

I become one with another by rationally pursuing goods in common. In that way his good becomes my good. But that means communion is possible only with someone with whom I can rationally cooperate to pursue understood goods in common. If I cannot rationally cooperate with him for an understood good, then I can only relate to this other as a thing to be directed toward an end that has been rationally adopted by me but not by this other. And so this other is related to me as a thing, an instrument, rather than as someone with whom I have a communion.